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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Rules for Health IT

"Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records"

The Medicare and Medicaid Health IT provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 promote the adoption and meaningful use of certified electronic health records (EHRs). The Recovery Act authorized incentive payments for eligible professionals (EPS) and hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid for becoming meaningful users of certified EHRs. The law established maximum annual incentive amounts and includes Medicare penalties for failing to meaningfully use EHRs beginning in 2015 for professionals and hospitals that fail to adopt certified EHRs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published the proposed rule defining 'meaningful use.' This rule would implement provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) that authorizes incentive payments to EPS and eligible hospitals participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs for adopting and becoming meaningful users of certified EHR technology. Recommendations from the HIT Policy and Standards Committees (see below) have been used by CMS to inform the rule-making process. Much of the heavy lifting to develop this criteria has been done by these committees and their workgroups and many of their recommendations are incorporated into the proposed rule:

Here is the Interim Final Rule from ONC:

Both the HIT Policy Committee and the HIT Standards Committee provided recommendations to the National Coordinator for Health Information to help CMS develop the initial criteria for meaningful use and assist in planning for any criteria expansion for the future incentive programs. More than 800 public comments were also received on the HIT Policy Committee’s initial recommendations.